Shadows Within Nightmares
by Yuki-Onna1
Summary: Magi are human beings granted powers to fight against monsters called Nightmares. It's a fun, yet dangerous task, but as long as everyone's working together, they can defeat the Nightmares together. That's how it always was, right? Or was it something else...?
1. Chapter 1

Been talking a bit with a friend of mine and got around to a Madoka AU of Vesperia. Buuut as I'm too lazy to actually go through the anime again and the fact that I'm more attached to Rebellion, this AU will just take place during that movie. Also everyone's aged down for the obligatory high school part this takes place in. Will be updated sporadically, because this is just an idea that I've been toying with.

I don't own Tales of Vesperia or Madoka

* * *

He dreamed of being a reclusive person, and then drawn into a certain group of friends. Of meeting what he could only call a monster at first, and then being saved by who he could only call a literal knight in shining armor and a valkyrie. Of learning of the beings called Magi, who battle the monsters called Witches to save people. Of seeing the knight and his friends dying before his eyes, and him powerless and unable to help.

Of making a wish so he could protect the knight instead of being protected.

He dreamed of going back in time, being able to fight alongside the knight as fellow Magi. Of fighting the powerful Witch that came that day, of seeing the swordswoman and almost-mage fall before the Witch, and the knight's gunslinger sister as well. Of the remaining two of them managing to kill the Witch, but the knight's soul gem was black as night and that's when he figured out where Witches came from.

The knight didn't want to become a Witch. He put the knight out of his misery and tried again. And again. And again and again _and again and **again**_ —

He dreamed of how the valkyrie was eaten, of how the swordswoman despaired and became a witch, of how the almost-mage gave up her life so the swordswoman wouldn't be lonely in death. Of how he told the not-knight not to become a Magi like his sister did. Of how he went to face that Witch himself, unwilling to subject the not-knight to that because of what he did.

The not-knight went and became a knight anyway. And then disappeared, because the knight's wish was powerful and gave power as well and the knight was no longer a knight but a god.

He dreamed of failing so, so many times. And he's failed this time as well, but there's no way he can change anything anymore. So he continues living, protecting the world because that's what he should do, that's the world that the knight gave his all to protect.

He dreamed that the swordswoman wasn't around anymore, and of how whenever the almost-mage spoke of the swordswoman there's heartbreak in her voice. He dreamed of wondering if that's how he sounds like when he's talking about the knight that no one remembers. Of how the knight's sister only barely remembered, but had no recollection of what the knight was like.

He'll hold his memories of the knight for all of them.

He kept on dreaming, dreaming of a new world where no Witches exist and Wraiths exist in place of those. Of fighting them with both his time-manipulating shield as well as a memory-manipulating sword. Of having his shield stolen away, and of trying to regain it while being followed by a Wraith that looked just like the knight. Of questioning his own memories because of what his past self may or may not have done, only to realize the truth. Of being given a choice between his two weapons.

In the end, he destroyed the shield. The shield was no longer needed, but the sword was. It was better suited to attacking and destroying the Wraiths, after all. It was the best ending he could hope to achieve.

Wasn't it?

He dreamed that he had a habit of holding off his soul gem purification, only remembering to do it once it was almost black. Of the fact that he had plenty of grief cubes to use, but when he was about to use them…

That damned Kyubey stole his soul gem out of his hand. He ran after it, but it was much too fast, and he could feel his control of his body slipping. As Kyubey disappeared out of sight, he—

He woke up.

* * *

I'm trying to get every party character in this story, though Raven and Repede couldn't make it in this chapter, while Karol was very very briefly mentioned. Can you guess who the others are?


	2. Chapter 2

A Tale of Brothers: They'll come! ... Eventually, since this is just for fun and I can't push myself for a regular update schedule.

For ages if anyone wants to know: Karol is 13, Patty is 14, Rita is 16, Estelle, Flynn, Judith, and Yuri are all 18. Raven is the old man, of course. No, of course these are not their canon ages (aside from Patty physically and Estelle), but I had said that the high school setting required some age changes.

I don't own Tales of Vesperia.

* * *

The door slowly opened, a child peeking into the room before she tiptoed inside. From what she could see, her brother was still fast asleep. There was also an alarm clock that was thrown against the wall, and she hid a sigh. Alarm clocks were not for breaking, they were for waking people up! Too bad her brother didn't get the memo.

With hardly a sound, she headed over to the closed curtains. A pause, and then she quickly glanced back. Yep, he's still asleep.

Squeezing her eyes shut as a smirk formed on her face, she grabbed the curtains and dragged it to let the sunlight in. There was some groaning coming from the bed, and her smirk only widened. Honestly, what was her brother going to do without her as his personal alarm clock?

"Flynn-nii-sama! It's morning so hurry and wake up already, nano ja!" When she looked back, her brother was facing away from the window to try and get some more sleep.

Well, she can't have that.

Running over to the bed, she climbed her way up and sat on top of Flynn to poke his cheek. Multiple times. "Flynn-nii-samaaaa, wake up or you'll be late to school, nano jaaaa."

A squeak escaped her mouth as Flynn rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. The girl had been sitting on top of her brother, so she unbalanced and fell off. She sat up again with a scowl. Fine, if Flynn wasn't going to wake up anytime soon, then she'll just have to use _that_!

Scurrying out of the bedroom and into her own, she quickly found what she needed and hurried right back. Sitting on top of Flynn once again, she reached out to brush his hair with the hairbrush she got.

There was a groan coming from the pillow. Well, where Flynn's face met the pillow, to be exact. A hand reached out to try and swat her away, but she easily pushed it down and continued with her brushing. No progress with that eternally messy hair, as she had expected. But it's still going to wake Flynn up!

"Patty, stop that…" Finally Flynn went and said something. At least, that's what Patty thought he had said. Kind of hard to tell with the pillow in the way.

"Nay!" She grinned as she felt Flynn shift again, this time managing to keep her balance and not fall off. "There's only five minutes left until school starts, nano ja."

There was a long pause as Flynn slowly registered what Patty had said, and then she squeaked again as Flynn shot up and she fell again. A scowl. "What a rude brother you are to knock overboard a delicate maiden like that, nano ja!"

Of course, she was being ignored. Patty could just imagine her brother groping around for his alarm clock, even though she couldn't see it from where she was on the ground. Too bad that alarm clock was already smashed.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner!?" And Flynn was now a flurry of motion, grabbing his school uniform and starting to change before he paused and stared at Patty. "… Why are you still here if school's about to start in a few minutes?"

Patty only giggled as she hopped to her feet. So she had been found out. "I lied, nano ja! It was the best way to get you out of bed, Flynn-nii-sama!"

And bright laughter trailed after her as she ran out the door for some breakfast, completely ignoring the shout of "Patty!" that came soon after.

* * *

Flynn sighed as his sister disappeared out the door, habitually running his hand through his hair even though his hair simply went back to its original position. How Patty could stay so energetic even though they both barely got enough sleep was beyond him, but he chalked it up to one of Patty's quirks.

Now that he had calmed down from his little panic that was thanks to Patty, he could actually take his time getting dressed. But… where _was_ his alarm clock…?

… Huh. Why was it on the floor?

Tucking that little mystery away for later, he put on his uniform tie and put his glasses case inside his bag. He didn't have to check for what was inside, since he had put his schoolwork inside last night… earlier today.

Scanning his surroundings, he nodded to himself before heading over to his dresser. Atop the dresser was a basket, and sleeping within that basket was a white creature that Patty had called a cat. Though it certainly didn't look like a cat. For some reason or another, they took it in and called it Kyubey. And though it liked to play with Patty, it followed Flynn around more often than not.

"I'm heading out now, Kyubey." With his little greeting over, he headed out the door and went to the bathroom, not noticing how Kyubey woke up and stared after him.

It took little time for him to brush his teeth and wash his face, and soon he was walking over to join his family for breakfast. Patty was already sitting in her seat, pouting at Flynn as he sat down. "You took so long, Flynn-nii-sama! Almost as slow as a sea snail, nano ja!"

After his brief and quickly forgotten apology, they started on the breakfast. Though, Flynn noticed, Patty had somehow gotten their mother to make her some oden and completely avoided the salad. He himself wasn't much of a picky eater, so he just ate whatever could fill his stomach long enough until lunch came by.

"How's school going?" His father asked, face hidden behind the newspaper he was reading. While Patty had went and cheerfully chatted about her pranks and classmates, Flynn took a bit longer to think on it.

"Mr. Schwann is still using part of the class to talk about the women that he met." In other words, the same as always. He heard a snort coming from his father and returned to thinking about whether or not there was anything different in school. "… Oh, right, I think there's going to be new transfer student."

"At this time of the year?" That came from his mother. Which was a pretty good point. But Flynn didn't really know much else, so he just shrugged.

He gave a glance to the time, and stood up as he grabbed for his school bag. There was a small tap on his shoulder before the weight settled in, and he smiled briefly at Kyubey before turning to his sister. "Come on, Patty. We should get going before we're actually late for school."

"Aye!" She took the last of her oden sticks and her backpack, following after her brother after the two of them gave a hurried goodbye to their parents.

The path to Flynn's high school and Patty's middle school was the same up until they reached a fork in the road. Waving Patty goodbye as she headed off to school with her friends, Flynn continued on to meet two of his friends further down the path. One of them, a pink-haired girl, was waiting patiently for him to show up, while the other, a younger brown-haired girl, was too engrossed in the book she was reading to pay much attention to Flynn.

"Good morning, Flynn." The pink-haired girl gave a soft smile, and Flynn couldn't help but smile and greet her back. Estelle always seemed to have that kind of effect on many of their classmates, not just him. Even the usually temperamental Rita was a lot mellower when Estelle's around. Speaking of which—

"You're late." Rita didn't even look up from her book, though Flynn had a good feeling it wasn't anything related to schoolwork. Genius that she was, she still hated the assignments the teacher gave out, claiming that it took time away from her actual studies (which had absolutely nothing to do with school).

"Ah, my apologies. My alarm clock had broken somehow and Patty had to wake me up." Which, unaware to Flynn, translated roughly to 'my lack of sleep got me really pissed so I broke the alarm clock when it sounded and went back to sleep, and Patty had to make sure I actually wake up on time.'

Both Estelle and Rita knew Flynn long enough to translate what he's saying to what he actually meant, so Estelle just nodded in sympathy while Rita scoffed. Though, Flynn noticed as they began the walk to school, neither of the two looked particularly tired even though they had just as much sleep as Flynn. Do they and Patty have some kind of secret to that?

"So, Flynn." As usual, Estelle was the one to start up the conversation as they began their trek to school. "Did you stay up later to finish your homework? You look more tired than usual."

He gave a sheepish laugh, embarrassed that his childhood friend could see through him so easily. She wasn't wrong in her assumption, after all. "Yes, I did. It's important for me to stay on top of my studies."

"If you need sleep, then just skip the homework and go to bed." Rita interrupted, glancing up momentarily from her book to shoot Flynn a look. "Not like we're going to need that stuff once we graduate."

Which, if Flynn thought he knew Rita well enough, meant that she didn't do her own homework at all. And judging from the small sigh that Estelle gave, he was correct in his assumptions. Estelle had likely tried but failed to get the other girl to do it, too.

They split off once they reached the school, Rita heading toward her classroom while Estelle and Flynn moved to theirs. Judith joined the two on the way, returning the group to a trio once more with her arrival.

"Have you two heard about the new transfer student?" Judith gave a small smile as she talked, and Flynn had a feeling she knew more about this transfer student than they did. He glanced down at her bag to see if Karol, a small and robot-like being, had anything to say, but couldn't see him. That gave him no hints at all.

"Oh, we have." Estelle picked up the conversation, eyes gleaming a little. They both knew Judith long enough to know that she was hiding something. "But only that the transfer student's coming today. Why do you ask? Do you know what they're like?"

"Hm, perhaps. What I heard was that they're going to transferring into our class."

And just from that, Flynn could already tell that Judith knew exactly who the transfer student is. But if that was all she wanted to say, then he figured that she wanted to keep the transfer student's identity a secret until they actually show up. For some reason.

Well, Judith was always like that.

Entering their classroom, Judith stopped by to talk with Mr. Schwann while Flynn and Estelle headed to their desks. Flynn had to wonder what they were talking about. More than likely it was something important that just came up, considering that Mr. Schwann could have just heard it earlier, as he was Judith's legal guardian and therefore lived together with her. And the unofficial Magi advisor, after some event involving another Magi that Mr. Schwann never talked about.

Setting down his bag and pulling out what he needed for this class, Flynn put on his reading glasses so he could read a book to pass the time. He'll put it away when the bell rings. And he did, putting his reading glasses away as well.

Though the surprising thing was that Mr. Schwann did _not_ start the class by introducing the transfer student. Instead, he chatted a bit about how to properly flirt with girls and boys alike. Why was Flynn even surprised by this?

He tuned it out for the most part, not thinking about what the teacher was saying. There wasn't any interest he had in flirting, so he'll start paying attention once Mr. Schwann moved off that topic.

"—Which reminds me!" Flynn glanced at the other at the outburst. Were they off the topic of flirting and romance now? "We've got a transfer student today. So stop standing outside and come on in already, kid!"

A second later, the door slid open as the new student walked in. Black hair tied up into a ponytail, gray eyes that seemed to be filled with boredom, and a uniform that's not buttoned up properly.

… This is the transfer student?

* * *

Of course he's not impressed. What kind of transfer student would come in on their first day without buttoning up their school uniform?


End file.
